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\f0\b\fs24 \cf0 How Climate Change Became a National Security Problem
\b0 \
by Issie Lapowsky\
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\cf0 Oct. 20, 2015 \'96 Toward the end of last week\'92s Democratic debate, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper tossed the 5 candidates on stage a relative softball: \'93What is the greatest national security threat to the United States?\'94 he asked.\
The chaos in the Middle East, Governor Lincoln Chafee offered meekly. Nuclear Iran, said former Maryland governor Martin O\'92Malley. The spread of nuclear weapons and the risk of them falling into the wrong hands was former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton\'92s answer. And Senator Jim Webb crammed 3 answers into his response: China, cyber warfare, and the \'93situations in the Middle East.\'94\
But Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, never one to let a lack of consensus stand in his way, broke from the pack. His nomination for the biggest national security issue: climate change. That earned Sanders derision from Republican candidates like Mike Huckabee and public praise from supporters like Seth MacFarlane. Still, it was just 1 answer in a 2.5 hour debate. It was quickly overshadowed just minutes later, when Sanders told Cooper that America was sick of hearing about Clinton\'92s \'93damn emails.\'94\
But while the national security comment may have been fleeting, the fact that climate change was brought up in that context at all signals a much bigger shift in how politicians are framing the issue\'97a shift that\'92s been years in the making.\
Talk of climate change was notably absent from the 2012 debates\'97which caused critics to accuse both President Obama and Mitt Romney of \'93climate silence.\'94 But it\'92s been a fairly steady fixture of presidential debates for decades, discussed in nearly every debate cycle since 1988. Candidates have framed it as an economic issue, an environmental issue, and a public health issue. But only recently have politicians like Sanders\'97and even President Obama himself\'97elevated climate change to the seriousness of national security.\
Just this year, President Obama\'97who back in 2008 was praising green jobs as a key to the country\'92s economic recovery\'97told graduates of the United States Coast Guard Academy that \'93climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security,\'94 which will \'93impact how our military defends our country.\'94\
Both Obama and Sanders have a point, of course. Climate change activists and military minds have been sounding the alarm on this issue since the early 2000s. But if concern over the climate moves from the academic and scientific spheres to the political, that\'92ll have important implications for how the country responds. Old-line environmentalists may not always like it.\
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\i \cf0 From Syria to the Arab Spring\
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\i0 \cf0 Back in 2003, the Department of Defense issued a report called \'93An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security.\'94 It posited that climate change could lead to food shortages and drought, which can exacerbate instability in vulnerable countries. But according to Francesco Femia, founding director of the Center for Climate and Security, that report was easy for people to ignore; the 1st of its kind, it positioned climate change as a far-off threat.\
Since then, however, defense and intelligence agencies have concluded\'a0that climate change\'97and its ensuing upheaval\'97could be a more immediate threat. A\'a0Council on Foreign Relations paper in 2007 offered specific recommendations on how to mitigate risk. Another report in 2008, commissioned by the CIA,\'a0attempted to predict climate change\'92s impact on national security by the year 2030. By 2014, the Department of Defense had adopted the term \'93threat multiplier\'94 to describe climate change. Also in 2014, DoD put out its so-called Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap. That surveyed the vulnerability of the country\'92s military bases. It included input from its Combatant Commands around the world.\
Meanwhile, research began to reveal how climate change contributed to the Arab Spring and the conflict in Syria.\
All of this, says Femia, who co-authored a report on the Arab Spring, \'93raised the bar on the issue\'94 in political circles, particularly among Democratic leaders. \'93We\'92ve seen very clear evidence that climate change is already impacting security in a number of places around the globe, including strategically significant places like Syria,\'94 he says.\
\'93It\'92s not just a framing. It\'92s not just a message,\'94 Femia adds. \'93It\'92s coming very much from the analysis that our military and intelligence community has been doing over the past decade.\'94\
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\i \cf0 Breaking the Deadlock\
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\i0 \cf0 Of course, just because this issue is getting legitimate research attention doesn\'92t mean that attention isn\'92t also politically expedient. Over the last decade, climate change has become as partisan an issue as guns and abortion, says Joshua Busby. He is an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas, who authored the Council on Foreign Relations 2007 report. \'93That\'92s disastrous for this problem,\'94 Busby says.\
Framed as an economic issue, Democratic leaders had no choice but to argue that investments in alternative energy would create new jobs, even as Republican leaders warned that retreating from fossil fuels would decimate existing jobs. When evidence of the national security implications of climate change began to surface, Busby says, activists thought, \'93Maybe Republicans might be more open to thinking of climate change as a real problem, if it\'92s brought to them by people they trust on national security.\'94\
The Citizens United decision, which enabled donors to pour unlimited money into campaigns, amplified the influence that billionaire environmentalists like Tom Steyer and his Super PAC NextGen Climate Action could have on pushing the issue. In the 2014 election cycle, NextGen Climate Action spent nearly $74 million to promote environmental issues. That, Busby says, has made advocating for climate action more \'93politically advantageous for Democrats,\'94 because there\'92s money behind the cause.\
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\i \cf0 Be Careful What You Wish For\
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\i0 \cf0 Framing climate change\'a0as a national security threat has obvious advantages. Not only does it increase the sense of urgency, but it also creates a path for environmental solutions. The military, for instance, could play an important role in building advanced green technology, helping secure the country\'92s grid, and giving the US a strategic advantage over other countries in the future. \'93Once we recognize it as an issue that affects all sectors of society, including the security of our political institutions, governments, and communities, then we can tackle it in a much more holistic way,\'94 says Femia.\
But while\'a0the security implications of climate change are real, both Femia and Busby say it\'92s crucial not to raise too many alarms. Femia, for one, takes issue with Sanders\'92 assertion that climate change is the
\i biggest
\i0 national security risk today. \'93I think that framing is problematic. It doesn\'92t compete with other priorities, things like terrorism or the nuclear threat of Iran or North Korea,\'94 he says. Ignoring that fact, Femia says, will only make it easier for candidates on the other side of the aisle to write off the issue entirely. \'93It\'92s going to be really important in the future to talk about climate change as not the biggest security issue, but an issue that will make security harder in the future,\'94 he says.\
Then there\'92s the fact, says Busby, that framing climate change as a military issue could lead to military solutions, not environmental ones. For instance, sea ice melting in the Arctic has paved the way for new drilling opportunities for countries like Russia. Of course, climate mitigation activists know that more drilling won\'92t fix the problem. But faced with the increased presence of countries like Russia in the region, President Obama recently called for new investment in Arctic icebreakers; they will help the US Coast Guard defend its oil interests in the region against other countries.\
In other words, when you frame climate change as a security threat, the military will want to respond. The way they will respond may have very little to do with stopping the spread of climate change. It will have to do with protecting military interests. \'93All that comes at a cost,\'94 both environmental and monetary, Busby says.\
Which is why, he says, politicians should think long and hard before recasting the issue of climate change completely. \'93People who are proponents of using the security framework to attract attention to this issue might not anticipate that when the military takes something seriously as a security threat, it has certain implications for the military,\'94 Busby says. \'93It reinforces nationalistic responses to solving the problem, as opposed to collective efforts that might be mutually beneficial to the world.\'94\
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\cf0 www.wired.com/2015/10/how-climate-change-became-a-national-security-problem/}